Space savers

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Deskbound workers fight a daily battle against the tide of clutter washing across their workspace, yet it is personal computers - supposedly their greatest productivity tool - that occupy the most space. The ThinkCentre S50 is IBM's latest weapon in the fight to reclaim desk space.

This tiny black box is 276 mm wide, 273 mm deep and 89 mm high but it punches well above its weight of 6.4 kg. Under the bonnet is a 3 GHz or 3.2 GHz Pentium 4 processor, supported by 512 MB of DDR RAM - 64 MB of which is shared with the onboard Intel 865GV graphics chip. The S50 also sports Gigabit Ethernet, PS/2, serial and parallel ports along with front and rear USB 2.0, audio in and audio out.

Popping the hood of the S50 presents an impressive sight. The top panel opens backwards to expose the 40 GB, 7200 rpm Seagate hard disk drive and TEAC CD-224E notebook CD-ROM. These drives are attached to a second panel, which opens forwards to expose the motherboard underneath. The result is a PC that unfolds like a flower, providing easy access to every component. Quick-release clips make it a simple task to replace the optical and hard disk drives.

Running Windows XP Professional, the S50 doesn't come with a recovery CD. Instead, the system restore data is stored on a hidden 3 GB partition. While this may be acceptable for large corporations, what are small office/home office users supposed to do if they can't boot into Windows to run system restore or, heaven forbid, the hard disk drive fails?

According to IBM, if you ring its tech support, it will send you a system restore CD, but could you live without your computer until a disc arrived in the mail? We'd rather have it upfront. Small and quiet, the S50 endears itself to SOHO users but IBM is targeting it at the corporate desktop - it only comes bundled with Norton AntiVirus 2004, Lotus Notes client and Lotus SmartSuite Millennium.

The computer can sit vertically or horizontally in the supplied stand. It is accompanied by a very basic two-button, scroll-wheel USB optical mouse and a full-size PS/2 keyboard with no fancy features such as hot keys.

Everything is standard IBM black and lacks the sleek look and feel of most small form-factor PCs, adding to the overall "plastic" feel that betrays the power hiding within. The S50 is no fashion statement but will suit users short on space yet not prepared to sacrifice performance.

Sony's ProDATA drives pack up to 23 GB onto a single-sided optical disc by harnessing the benefits of blue-laser technology and advanced optics. The drives feature a 16 MB cache and offer sustained 11 MB per second read and 9 MB per second write transfer speeds. Sony's ProDATA kits include disc formatting and back-up software package for both Mac and PC, as well as one piece of Sony ProDATA rewriteable media.

The Travel Easy Cable Bag is a universal cable travel kit for road warriors. The 150 mm x 160 mm case contains three universal retractable cable sets and includes connections for RJ45/RJ45 crossover, RJ11, USB/USB Mini and FireWire 4-pin/6-pin. The cables are also configured to form extension cables as required. The kit includes a retractable microphone and headphone set.

Targus' USB 2.0 Mobile Docking Station packs a host of features into a tiny (146 mm x 57 mm x 17 mm) footprint. Weighing 390 g, it provides one parallel, one serial, two USB and two PS/2 ports, with a single USB 2.0 plug connecting all devices to the notebook. Plug-and-play connectivity means it automatically recognises new devices when plugged in without the need to reboot the PC.